HOW TO BE A HIPSTER

Another week, another essay due in my writing class. The assignment was to write a "How To" essay, and so, of course, I wrote about hipsters. I've always just found the whole phenomenon to be delightfully ironic in itself...although I must admit, I felt just a little hypocritical while writing this... but I'm, like, definitely not a hipster, you guys (see last paragraph). Anyways. Here it is in all of its obscure, angst-ridden glory:

How to Be a Hipster

         First, forget everything that you’ve ever liked or found pleasure in—name brand clothing, catchy boy bands, happiness, showers—and pack it away nicely in a little box labeled Too Mainstream in the back of the closet of your mind. To the world, the existence of this box must become a myth, comparable to that of Sasquatch or the noble unicorn. And you’re too tortured and obscure for unicorns, now. But don’t destroy the box—no, keep it around and dust it off occasionally and open it up if the opportunity to use its contents in an ironic fashion presents itself. It’ll be hilarious. Then close up the box as stealthily as possible and conceal it back behind the thick-rimmed glasses that are super glued to your face. You are so cool. You are a hipster.

            But don’t be confused—you are allowed to like things. In fact, being a hipster requires you to like things—just not the things that anyone else likes. This is essential. This is the core doctrine of Hipsterism. Is kelly green the fashionable spring color that everyone is wearing? Wear anything else. Or better yet, a shade of green that is slightly similar but definitely off and definitely intentional. So ironic. Is everyone listening to that new album that Vampire Weekend just released? Don’t listen to it. Or better yet, listen to it so that you can make snarky, informed comments when the album is brought up in conversation. You are the counter-culture of all that is culture. You are the most unique individual to ever grace the earth. And you most definitely do not have a Pinterest. 

            It has been said that “the clothes make the man,” and as a hipster, what you wear will serve two purposes: 1. Signaling to other hipsters that you are one of them, and 2. Signaling to the world that you are a hipster. In order to keep your wardrobe as exclusive and offbeat as you are, shop solely at thrift stores, or any stores of the secondhand variety. As you peruse the bulging clothing racks, keep the core doctrine of Hipsterism in mind and place into your cart the exact opposite of what anyone else would choose. Your fashion sense is a lack of fashion sense. For the top half of you, a grungy flannel, a horrendous sweater stitched with an unintelligible animal pattern, or a uniform from a little league team with the name “Charlie” embroidered across the chest will do quite nicely. Grab a few unassuming cardigans and obscure band t-shirts and you’re set. If you are a Woman Hipster, invest in a wide variety of skinny jeans, and if you are a Man Hipster, wear the same jeans as the Woman Hipsters and make sure they aren’t long enough so you can show off your delicate, hairy ankles. Footwear is optional, depending on the season, but if desired, must also be ironic. An old pair of bowling shoes from an actual bowling alley would be ideal. And as far as accessories go, a slouchy beanie, outrageous fanny pack, or an oversized camera posing as a necklace will suffice. Walk out of the thrift store wearing your vintage threads, proclaiming that you will never wash them, then top it off by going to a 3D movie, keeping the glasses like the rebel you are, and wear them religiously after punching the lenses out. You now look and smell like a certifiable hipster. But you’re not done yet.

            The four main food groups of the hipster are coffee, coffee, more coffee, and coffee. Make Starbucks, or better yet, some quiet, back alley café your second home. Order your ambrosia without sugar or milk or any conceivable sweetener and drink it sparingly as you read from a tattered copy of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye or Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. While you will occasionally have to eat actual food, create the illusion that you don’t and brag about how black coffee literally runs through your veins. But if you must eat in front of others, make sure that it is organic, vegetarian, vegan, or otherwise environmentally conscious and ensure that everyone around you knows this. Then drink some more coffee.

            In the life of a hipster, music is only second in importance to breathing and sighing introspectively. Forget every other genre you’ve ever heard of and replace them with only two: obscure and ironic. The ratio of music on your ipod should be about 94% obscure and 6% ironic. Obscure music includes bands that have yet to make a full album, have a name that is either completely mundane or delightfully ironic, or employ the use of some bizarre instrument like the Jew’s harp or didgeridoo. Ironic music must either be a cover of a mainstream song performed by one of these obscure bands—for example, “Call Me Maybe” played on a marimba and chanted by a chorus of melodramatic beat poets, or an actual song from decades ago that no one has ever heard of. Go to concerts as often as possible. Attend only those that are “underground,” and, if you can find them, those that are literally underground. Center most of your conversation on music, and in doing so keep at least one ear bud in your ears at all times, insist that live versions are superior to all else, and always follow any band reference you make with the statement “You’ve probably never heard of them.” When asked what you’re listening to, speak enthusiastically about a new group that experiments with the sound of water dripping off of a trashcan while a lone sitar plays sporadically in the background. And most importantly, never admit that you have never heard of a band. You are a hipster. You know of every band before it even exists.

            But to look, eat, and listen to music like a hipster is not enough. To properly pull off this lifestyle, you must foster the attitude of a hipster. Walk around town with your headphones securely over or in your ears, rarely make eye contact, and entirely forget that you ever knew what posture is. Don’t finish your sentences. Speak as few words as possible, insert meaningful pauses whenever you deem necessary, and saturate every comment with an air of condescension. Every so often, begin composing ambiguous free-verse poetry mid-sentence. Sniff disdainfully. Huddle inside your cardigan, hide behind your glasses, and revel in your reclusiveness. Sit in an overgrown field and tell anyone who asks that you’re becoming one with the universe. The possibilities are endless—as long as you’re always following the core doctrine of Hipsterism.

             Finally, the most important thing that an aspiring hipster must remember is this: you must vehemently deny that you are a hipster. Accusations will be tossed at you the moment you step out of the thrift store wearing a mohair blazer or tell someone that you’re listening to a band called “Going to the Grocery Store for Eggs and Acceptance.” You must be prepared for this. Practice rolling your eyes, raising your eyebrows, and perfect the art of the incredulous chuckle to use specifically in these moments. Because there’s no way that anyone could put such a confining label on the unique, tortured enigma of a soul that is you. It’s just not possible. You’re too much of a hipster for that.

SMALL TALK: A SATIRICAL APPROACH

When assigned to write an essay where the requirement is to praise a common thing that most people take for granted, sometimes you just have to flip it on its head and write some good old-fashioned satire. And sometimes, you're so proud of it that you just have to share it on your blog. 

...And some other times, you wait until the day before it's due to write it. JK LOL that's, like, every time for me. Anyways. That's really all I have to say about this. Goodnight, moon. 

Talking Small

            We’ve all been in this situation: you’re invited to a party by a close friend of yours. Not wanting to appear overeager, yet also wanting to arrive early enough that you avoid walking into a roomful of people you don’t know, you arrive about ten minutes after the party was scheduled to begin. And you’re still the first one there. Success. Greeted warmly by your friend, you perch on the end of an overstuffed sofa and breathe a sigh of relief—because of your impeccable timing, you no longer have to acknowledge the fact that you are not even remotely acquainted with your friend’s circle of friends.

            Then the doorbell rings. And in walks a guy who’s about as familiar as someone you’ve never met before. But you have nothing to fear, because the host of the party is a close personal friend of yours, and she’ll be there to bridge the gap between you. Only once she lets him in, the oven blares a triumphant declaration of incessant beeping and your friend disappears into the kitchen—leaving the two of you alone. Not again.

            Out of nowhere, the button near the hem of your shirt suddenly becomes extremely interesting. How did the sheer brilliance of its smooth, glossy finish ever go unnoticed? After admiring it for a spell, your eyes make a quick jump upwards and you realize that Mr. Second-to-Arrive, still standing by the doorway, has just discovered that he was wearing shoes, staring down at them intently as if they held all the secrets of the universe. And the room is silent, except for the distant clanging of kitchen sounds providing a lovely soundtrack to the scene. But you know that this can’t go on much longer. It’s inevitable—you’ll have to say something.

            “So how do you kn—”

            “Beautiful weather outside, huh?”

            Cue awkward laughter that slowly dies down into an even more uncomfortable silence. You would both start talking at the same time.

            “So…what’s your name? Mine’s Jason.”

            Jason. That makes him, like, the hundredth Jason you’ve ever met. Why is that name so popular?

            “Oh, nice to meet you, Jason. I’m Erica…and you’re right—the weather is pretty nice today.”

            He nods slowly, and once again that temptress of a button on your shirt is calling to you, inviting you to succumb. But it’s too late to pretend that he’s not there, so you resolve to muscle on through this quagmire of a conversation hoping to find some common ground.

            “So…did you see that game on TV last night? Pretty intense…”

            He responds with a puzzled look, putting his hands awkwardly in his pockets as he raises his shoulders. “I don’t really like sports.”

            “Oh.”

            “Yeah…I’m more of a…video game guy…”

            “…Interesting.”

            “Yeah…”

            Then the door opens abruptly and you both realize that you don’t know this new person either. And the process starts all over again. This is small talk.

            Mankind has been engaging in this fascinating ritual since the dawn of time. Indeed, even in the throes of the Pleistocene Period the humble cavemen participated in small talk. Around the water hole during hunting season, two males undoubtedly could be seen making tentative grunts interspersed by the occasional awkward gesture of a spear or the unnecessary straightening of a mammoth skin toga. As our species has progressed, our language may have become more sophisticated, but the extraordinary phenomenon that is small talk has remained astoundingly the same. Almost the same exact scene is reconstructed in office buildings across the world today as men wearing a variation of the toga—the suit and tie—can be observed behaving in a similar fashion around the office water cooler. But fortunately for all of us, small talk is not limited to only those close in proximity to a reservoir of water. No, small talk can occur anywhere: on a bus, in line at the grocery store, on a first date, and even with family members that you only come in contact with during the holidays. 
              Because it is so common, it is rather easy to dismiss small talk as merely idle chitchat—the superficial and pointless blather that is as trivial as it is prosaic. But the truth is that this seemingly mundane occurrence is imperative to all aspects of our lives. Small talk is the threshold one must pass through when meeting potential friends, mates, employers, and almost every other individual that you will ever come in contact with in your entire life. So before you complain about its existence, I would invite you to look beyond its presumed vices and appreciate its plethora of virtues. Without it, you’d probably have even less friends than you currently have because of it.

            What is small talk? According to Wikipedia, small talk is “an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed. [It] is conversation for its own sake.” And regardless of the culture, social class, or ethnicity of the individuals involved, small talk somehow manages to always revolve around the same topics—topics that serve the purpose of gaining deep insight into the very core of a person’s being. For example, a classic subject discussed is the weather. A person’s response to “Lovely weather we’re having, don’t you agree?” is quite possibly one of the most revealing phrases they will ever utter. If they agree, and remark on their love of warm, sunny weather, they are obviously an outgoing, happy person that you would enjoy socializing with. Whereas if they comment on how it is nice, yet they prefer slightly overcast days with a chance of rain, they are undoubtedly wretched, introverted outcasts who are inwardly miserable and unhappy with their lives. The surprising personal details discovered through the use of small talk are simply remarkable.

            Equally as penetrating are questions regarding where a person is from or what they are studying in school. Your conversational partner’s hometown being located in the Midwest indicates his rough-and-tumble childhood growing up on a farm, his capacity to milk a wide variety of mammals, and the devastating tornado season that transported him to the magical Land of Oz in his youth. Add in the fact that he’s a chemical engineering major, which clearly means he is socially awkward and has the personality of a dead sloth, and once again, small talk has assisted you in uncovering almost everything you need to know about a person upon your first meeting.

            In recent history, the integration of technology into our world has proven to be an unexpected boon to our initiatory discourses. The convenience of having the majority of our social interactions take place through a cellular device or the friendly clicking of a keyboard only enhances the rare times when we do speak to another human being in person. And the most amazing thing about the influence of technology is that the same riveting small talk can occur when even less is being said. Consider this excerpt from an actual exchange between two teenagers during a break between classes:

            “So…you’re in my math class, right?”

            “Yep.”

            “That’s cool.”

            “Yep.”

            “Would it be cool if I got your number?”

            “Um...okay.”

Keep in mind that this entire conversation occurred while the young people were staring at the screens of their smart phones. Truly impressive. The progress of our society honestly knows no bounds.

            Unless you’re currently living in seclusion or are on the run from the FBI, you encounter the delight that is small talk on a daily basis. This regularity may cause it to be viewed as a frivolous and utter waste of time, but I shudder at the thought of mankind without its frequent and unending obsession with discussing television shows, the state of the weather, and the positively factual stereotypes of different geographical regions of the country. Some may say that the role it plays is small, but when it comes down to it, there is simply nothing small about small talk.   

The socially awkward man's best friend.